As the world faces an energy crisis, the director of the U’s Petroleum Research Center said he believes a controversial oil resource might not become a significant supply of energy for at least 10 years.
Companies and academic research centers worldwide are investigating a process by which underground deposits of solid organic matter, called oil shale, can be converted into oil for fuel.
“(Oil shale technology) has to be tried on a few difference scales under different conditions before the issues can be ironed out,” said Milind Deo, the director of the PRC and a chemical engineering professor with the U’s Institute for Clean and Secure Energy.
Deo said that in other sources, oil already exists. Oil shale is like an ore, but to make it into a useful oil, you heat it up, he said.
“You take low-cost coal, put that into shale and make transportation energy,” Deo said. “It’s possible. It’s not enough. The energy (output) needs to be significant (for the process to be economical).”
Deo defines significant oil production as 50,000 barrels of oil per day. World oil production is about 80 million barrels per day. Shale production companies can produce a few thousand barrels per day.
Emily Lewis, president of the Natural Resources Law Forum at the U, said a fuel crisis seems imminent.
“(Utah and Colorado) are going to be at the apex,” said Lewis, a law student, about the future of the debate surrounding oil shale, because both states have significant oil shale fields.
Recent oil shale technology advancements have stirred a growing debate between carbon fuel proponents and conservationists. Industry representatives, researchers and environmentalists gathered at the S.J. Quinney College of Law last week to discuss oil shale development in Utah.
Steve Bloch, a panelist and the conservation director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said he and many conservation advocates disagree with the congressional decision made earlier in 2008 to allow companies to lease federal lands in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming known to have shale deposits. Congress agreed to this measure in hopes that the land availability will stimulate the research and development of oil shale technology.
Many technologies in the works are aimed toward lessening the impact of shale conversion on the environment. If the shale lies within 300 feet of the surface, miners are able to extract it, crush it and heat it in a refinery. If the shale lies in the 1,000- to 2,000-foot range below the surface, the company would internally heat the shale.
A few companies worldwide use the extraction method, and one company in Utah uses a combination of the extraction and internal heating processes. The temperatures required for the heating process are 660 to 750 degrees Fahrenheit, Deo said.
Bloch said it would be premature to entirely close the door on oil shale.
“We need to go slowly and thoughtfully through the process,” including addressing the potential environmental impacts, he said.
Research projects at ICSE are studying the impact of oil shale development on the natural environment and environmental policy. Other on-campus shale studies include experimental research on the fundamental geological and chemical processes that occur during oil shale conversion.
Law school panelists said technology would not allow the fuel industry to access oil shale as a viable energy source until much further in the future.
“I don’t see this being viable for the next 10 years or longer,” Deo said.
The earliest commercial demonstrations for the internal heating processes are not scheduled in the United States until 2011.
“(The extraction process) has a better time line,” Deo said. “It could get in the 50,000 barrels range in five years, if all the stars line up.”
A key factor in the development of oil shale production will be the price of oil per barrel. The larger the gap between the price of oil and the cost of the energy required to process the shale, the more cost efficient the shale production will be.